Just ordered Chloroquine for ich.

[lesleybird]

Hi, I have been doing a lot of reading on ich and my new book on THe Marine Fish Health and Feed Handbook said that Chloroquine Phosphate is a good treatment for ich in a marine fish only tank.

Can't catch my fish so thought I would remove 2/3 of the sand and the marine algea macro algea plants, as many snails and crabs as I can and put them in a 40 gallon tank by themselves for about 6 weeks to 2 months enough for the ich to die off in the sand and the Chloroquine to be out of the main tank before I put them back in the main tank.

I have read that the Chloroquine phosphate did not damage the biological filter bacteria in the experience of the author. I have read that some people claim that it kills the biological bacteria by some lay people on fish forms but I think that this amonia spike must be from all of the life dying off on their rocks and sand. I plan to take out a few rocks to put in with the snail and crabs as I don't know if the medication will kill off the coraline algea on the rocks or not so they may need to be re-seeded after treatment.

My question is how to best use this product. There are a lot of conflicting articals on the proper dose and how often to use it. I would like to does it every few days or weekly for about a month to make sure all the ich that hatches are killed as it only kills the swimming stage but don't know where to find the dosing information. Can someone please help here with some dosing information? I will look on the internet to see the range of toxicity for humans but don't know what that would be in fish. I just started taking nearly the same medicine for an autoimmune condition called Hydroxychloroquine which is also and antimalaria medication like the Chloroquine phosphate for the fish. These medications are suppose to be antiprotozal (can't spell it). They are not antibiotics so I don't see that they could kill bacteria (meaning the biological filter) in a fish tank. I had to do a lot of searching on line but finally found this powder at a site called Fishchemical.com. Luckily I do have a gram scale to weigh out the powder. Lesley

 

[Stuart60611]

Very interested to find out how it goes for you. I have read it is recommended to be dosed 10mg/L per 5 day treatment. However, since you are doing it in the display with some rock left in, I think you would have to do multiple treatments to rid the dispaly of ich. Please keep us posted on how it goes.

 

[lesleybird]

Well, I think that I will go snail hunting with my flashlight in the dark....this is when the snails like to come out the most. Want to remove as many as I can because they will die during the Chloroquine treatment. I hope the med comes tomorrow. I want to try to take the fish out as many as I can catch as I want to keep them out for a few days in rubbermaids in case there is an ammonia spike in the main tank (after chloroquine added), for a couple of days from the worm and any snails that may be left in the tank die off. A few partial water changes syphoning the sand and replacing the water with new medicated water at frequent intervals.

I don't have a quarenteen set up (no room in our house), so I will switch the fish into a new rubbermaid every 48 hours.....have pvc and heater and powerhead in there. Will treat them with the antibiotic Furian and Melafix to heal their ich sores. All fish are still eating well at this time. I have used this transfering between rubbermaids like this several times (with the same meds) in the past with out any fish losses and all got better. Seems that you don't need to treat their ich when you move them to a totally clean rubbermaid every 48 hours as the ich falls off and the fish are moved before any new ich can hatch to reinfect them. You must use a new washed out tub, dried powerhead etc. each transfer, and acclimate them in a bucket, transfer with hands. After about 6 days or so I will put them back into the display where hopefully the die off has settled down. The Chloroquine is not an antibiotic and is not suppose to harm the good bacteria in the main tank. I actually take hydroxychloroquine (plaquinil) for an autoimmune condition. Both are anti-malaria, anti-protozal, immune system modulating drugs. I will keep you all posted.

If the medication works I may just go snail and worm free so that I can treat the tank when there is an ich problem. Who knows. There has to be a better way to treat ich than what we have all been doing. I can live with just the fish and skip the rest if it means not having the ich nightmare to deal with all of the time....They say that the chloroquine phosphate also kills all of the algae (and corals), so we may not need the snails. Heard it does not kill hermit crabs, but don't know for sure yet. Don't know if it hurts coraline algae either. Pods? Please excuse my spelling. I see all the misspelled words underlined in red but don't know if there is a spell check on here. Too tired for a dictionary!! Lesley

 

[lesleybird]

Update on chloroquine treatment.
Well, the chloroquine seemed to kill the ich but had to remove all my fish on day 4 because I came home and there was an amonia spike in the tank from all the worms and feather dusters and those tiny snails that I had always wanted to get rid of dieing off. I had removed all of the large snails, and the couple that I missed died and were found and removed. I figure that if I kill off all of the worms and tiny snails and fan worms now that after I do a few water changes and let the amonia go away that I will be able to treat the tank in the future with this med if needed without having an amonia spike from die off. The medication did not hurt the hermit crabs....got all out that I could just in case but found a stray wondering around on day 4. The worms are taking a long time to die but I tried to suck a lot of their bodies out with a water change in the main 200 gallon tank last night. Had to take all the rock out to catch the fish and placed it in rubbermaids then put it back in the tank. The chloroquine is not suppose to kill the good bacteria in the tank but there was such a great die off that it could not keep up. Will keep the fish (they are doing well) in a 28 gallon rubbermaid for about 10 days or so switching them to a new one with new water every other day and treating the water with ammonia lock stuff so that they will be ok until I get them back into the main tank. I have a 4 inch majestic angel, 2 and 3/4 inch regal, potters angel, one clown and a royal gamma. We lost a blenny and a cleaner goby in the rocks. I don't plan ever to put any snails or worms back in the tank if the treatment works as I want to be able to treat ich in the main tank if needed. Unlike copper, the chloroquine does not stay in the rocks forever. I will keep you all posted as to how it goes.
Just looked in the main tank and removed some more brisstle worms. I just saw a bunch of large pods playing around on the rocks in there and some tiny clear worms climbing up the side of the glass, and some little plankton crawling on the glass so I guess it does not kill them. Lesley

 

[Stuart60611]

I have tried quinine sulphate and had a similar ammonia spike. However, my situation was different in that my system consists only of base rock, no inverts, worms, etc. As such, I am not sure whether these quinine meds do not affect the biological filter b/c of what I experienced. Just wanted to pass this along.

 

[lesleybird]

Well, on day four of the treatment the water in the tank turned cloudy and I tested the water and there was an amonia spike so I pulled out all of my fish and put them in new water....put about 20 gallons of water in a 28 gallon rubbermaid with a powerhead, PVC pipes and a heater. I had to take out all the live rock and put them in saltwater in a couple of other rubbermaids to be able to catch the Regal, Majestic, and Potter's angels...also one clown fish. The blenny and the goby were never found. Think these little fish parished in some holes in my live rock somewhere. Put the rock back in the tank.
Well, stupid me. I thought that the dose of cholorquine phosphate was ok as I had used the same concentration in the big tank. I put 80 percent of a Tablespoon of powder in the 200 gallon tank so I thought it would be ok to use 1/4 teaspoon to continue treatment in the 20 gallons of water. I was wrong! The medication was put in the tank about 7pm. on one day, the next day I fed them at 5 pm., they all ate well..........at 8pm. I looked in the tub and the 2 1/2 in Regal, Potter's angel, Majestic, and I forgot to mention a royal gramma were all laying on their sides on the bottom of the tub. I had another tub of clean saltwater without the medication for the next day's water change sitting beside it so I quickly grabbed all the fish out with my hands and tossed them into the other tub even though the other tub was about 5 degrees colder as I had not put the heater in it yet. Well the Regal was barely breathing (died), Potter's angel dead, the Royal gramma dead. My clown seemed to improve when I put him in the new water and the Majestic.....held him cupped between both hands laying on his side for about ten minutes or so to keep him warm and he recovered and was swimming around and eating well the next day.

Soooo, I have the Majestic and a clown living in a tub while I am letting my tank go fallow with the live rock for 5 weeks or so. I plan to put them back in the 200 gallon on April Fools day (me the fool!), if all goes well. The dam tank is going through some kind of cycle...ammonia through the roof. May just be all the die off of worms. I had lots of brissle worms and tiny fan worms that were taking over the tank and tiny snails that were pests that all died. Now the coraline algea on the rocks is dieing but don't know for sure if it will die completely. Did start to run the skimmer and put some charcoal in there to help remove the med and also did a couple of 40 gallon water change and picked and sucked dead worms out of the sand.

Read up on all the medications to cure ich and I think I will just do all the work of transfering the fish to a clean rubbermaid every 48 hours while scrubbing all the stuff down with hot soapy water and letting them dry between. I have several sets of PVC, heaters, powerheads. I even soaked the power heads in very hot soapy water for an hour. Scrubbing the PVC's with hot water and a brush, cleaning the Rubbermaids with soap and a brush...rinse well. I am not going to use medication as the life cycle of the ich is broken when moving the fish like this for a month as the ich does not have time to hatch to reinfect. The Majestic and clown do not show any ich now that is visable. We never know if it is in the gills. I put some Ammonia lock in the tub also and remove uneaten food.

I had also purchased a 4 inch changing Emporer that I had in a quarenteen tub since last week that is doing well. I finally realized that I could not change two tubs out every 2 days for the next month as the work was killing me too! I took a chance today and tried to put the Emperor in the tub with the Majestic and clown so I could keep them in one tub to be easier on me. So far they are doing fine. The Majestic was used to living with other angelfish and was always the dominent one but after a time he would swim around with the other angels. Well they got side by side a couple of times and the Majestic gently whopped the other wish with his tail to show he was in charge and nothing else happened. I was going to get a Bluefaced but thought they looked too much like the Majestic for them to get along. I am hoping the Emperor looks different enough. I only plan to keep these two fish in the tank with a couple of other smaller fish, no other large fish.

I am hoping that the transfer method works. They say that it does but that it is very labor intensive. In the transfer method to cure the ich the ich cysts fall off the fish in three to five days and go to the bottom of the tub. You put them in a new tub evey two days so the the ich does not have time to hatch to reinfect. It takes a minimum of three days and usually more for the ich swimmer to "hatch" into swimmers that can reinfect. The ich on the fish usually falls of in 7 days or less. I use the same water source and put the exact same amount of salt when I move the to the other tub. I still acclimate them in a plastic bucket and catch them in my hands and place them in the new tub. The angels get used to me gently cupping them in my hands and plopping them into another tub and do not show stress when I do this. I first get them when they are in the PVC and put a 3 and a half gallon plastic bucket in the tub and stick the end of the PVC in it to get them into the bucket, or I take the PVC out and put the bucket sideways into the tub and they swim into it. The clown I just chase down with my hands. I have kept lots of different fish in tubs for antibiotic treatments and the like and never lost any fish this way. It is very labor intensive. I will never stick a fish in the tank again without quaranteening them for a month. What a mess.

The only other time I had a massive fish die off is when I treated a 90 gallon tank with a product with a mixture of Malachite green and Quinine for ich. Can't remember the name, but they don't make the stuff any more. The same dose used in a smaller tank worked well, cured the ich and the fish lived. In the bigger 90 gallon (my old tank), I used what I thought was the same dose but the drop sizes were not the same coming out of the bottle (not designed right) and it only gave the dose in number of drops. Well that stuff killed all my fish over night. The Quinine I think is in the same drug family as the Chloroquine phosphate. My take on the whole mess is that these drugs have a narrow margin of error. Trying to get the dose that kills the ich without killing your fish is difficult. The problem was that the only place I could find the chloroquine phosphate is from I guy that sells fish medications in powder form without any dosing information. He says he buys this stuff in bulk from trips to China. I had to weigh and amount with a gram scale and 4 tablespoons weighed 40 grams, so I figured that 1 tablespoon weighed about 10 grams and I needed 80,000 mg. for my 200 gallon tank so I used 80 percent of a tablespoon. Maybe this dose did not kill the fish right off like the fish dosed in the tub because the live rock and sand may have absorbed it. Who knows. I don't think I will use this stuff again unless I can get it from a human pharmacy in pill form where I can know the exact dose and until there is more research to find a treatment protocol that kills the ich without killing the fish.

I will keep you all posted on how the fish do with the transfer method, and if my tank still has ich when I put them in on April one. Don't know if that day is lucky, or April Fool?? Lesley

 

[lesleybird]

You know, I think that it was the dish washing liquid that I washed the tub with that killed my fish. Thought I had rinsed it out well enough but I guess not.....won't do that again! I know it was not the medication that killed the fish as I had another incident where the fish died without using any medication in the tub but had used the soap to clean it, so unless a buffer or Ammo Lock stuff can kill when properly dosed, the only common denominator is the soap....I saved my Majestic and clown but lost one other fish....less than 24 hours after putting the fish in clean water in the tub they were all laying on their sides again near dead. Moved them to new water but think that any dishwashing liquid must be lethal to fish. Did not know this until I was looking at some plastic plants at Petsmart and on the label it said do not wash them in soap as it is very toxic to fish. I found out the hard way. Think thaabout a couple of years ago when my fish died in a 90 gallon tank itwas after I had washed out the barrel that I make water in with dish soap always rinsed very well but the residue must kill them.

I do know that the chloroquine phosphate in my main 200 gallon tank killed a lot of worms and a lot of the coraline algae on my rocks. I did get rid of the nusance tiny snail and the tiny feather dusters that had taken over the tank. The whole tank is going through a hard cycle again. The ammonia was off the charts for about a week or a little longer while the nitrates and nitrates were very low. I added a bottle of Cycle bacteria to the tank and the ammonia is near zero now and the nitrite and nitrates are very very high.

Well, this is my fallow period for my tank and I am letting it cycle with all the rock. Don't know how I will ever get the nitrates down.

 

[Saltliquid]

treatments

treatments

I have known several people that use and have used Chloroquine,both commercialy and privately and they found failure to some degree with anything other than the fish in there.

The white spot variaties are inverts and so are bacteria crabs,anyhting in or on your live rock.etc.

If it will cure ich well,it will affect other inverts as the others found.

If you think you can remove ich from an area that has inverts in it,you will most likely kill most of the inverts.

Even if you can remove the dorment parrasite waiting to sense stress and get back into it.

What about the fish or live rock that has a minute amount of this parrasite that will be introduced,unknowingly into the tank.

Use a sepperate tank for treatment and don't totaly realy on a bio filter in it.

Chloroquine is great,but it is assentualy an invert treatment as are all the ones that really work well that i have tried and have seen in action.